Welcome to Sleep Stories with Steph,
Your go-to podcast that guarantees you a calm and relaxing transition into a great night's sleep.
Today's story is called Dr.
Jekyll and Mr.
Hyde.
First published in 1886,
This story explores the duality of human nature and suggests that within each and every one of us lies both good and evil.
But before we begin,
Let's take a moment to focus on where we are now.
It is time to relax and fully let go.
There is nothing you need to be doing now and nowhere you need to go.
Take a deep breath in through your nose.
Then let it out on a long sigh.
Chapter Eight continued.
The butler led Mr.
Utterson back to the garden.
Now sir,
Said he,
You come as gently as you can.
I want you to hear and I don't want you to be heard.
And say yes sir,
If by any chance he was to ask you to go in,
Don't go.
Mr.
Utterson's nerves at this unlooked-for termination gave a jerk that nearly threw him from his balance.
But he recollected his courage and followed the butler into the laboratory building and through the surgical theatre with its lumber of crates and bottles to the foot of the stairs.
Here Paul motioned to him to stand on one side and listen,
While he himself,
Setting down the candle and making a great and obvious call on his resolution,
Mounted the steps and knocked with a somewhat uncertain hand on the cabinet door.
Mr.
Utterson,
Sir,
Asking to see you,
He called.
And even as he did so,
Once more violently signed to the lawyer to give ear.
A voice answered from within.
Tell him I cannot see anyone,
It said complainingly.
Thank you,
Sir,
Said Paul,
With a note of something like triumph in his voice.
And taking up his candle,
He led Mr.
Utterson back across the yard and into a great kitchen where the fire was out and the beetles were leaping on the floor.
Sir,
He said,
Looking Mr.
Utterson in the eye,
Was that my master's voice?
It seems much changed,
Replied the lawyer.
Changed?
Well,
Yes,
I think so,
Said the butler.
Have I been twenty years in this man's house to be deceived about his voice?
No,
Sir,
Master's made away with.
He was made away with eight days ago when we heard him cry out upon the name of God.
And who's in there instead of him and why it stays there is a thing that cries to heaven,
Mr.
Utterson.
This is a very strange tale,
Paul.
This is a rather wild tale,
My man,
Said Mr.
Utterson,
Biting his finger.
Suppose it were as you suppose,
Supposing Dr.
Jekyll too have been,
Well,
Murdered.
What could induce the murderer to stay?
That won't hold water.
It doesn't command itself to reason.
Well,
Mr.
Utterson,
You're a hard man to satisfy,
But I'll do it yet,
Said Paul.
All this last week,
You know,
Him or it or whatever it is that lives in that cabinet has been crying night and day for some sort of medicine and cannot get it into his mind.
It was sometimes his way,
The master's that is,
To write his orders on a sheet of paper and throw it on the stair.
We have had nothing this week back,
Nothing but papers and a closed door and the very meals left here to be smuggled in when no one's looking.
Well,
Sir,
Every day,
I,
And twice and thrice in the same day,
There've been orders and complaints and I've been sent flying to all the wholesale chemists in town.
Every time I brought the stuff back,
There will be another paper telling me to return it because it was not pure and another sending me to a different firm.
This drug is wanted bitter bad,
Sir,
Whatever it's for.
Have you any of these papers?
Asked Mr.
Utterson.
Paul felt in his pocket and handed out a crumpled note,
Which the lawyer,
Bending nearer to the candle,
Carefully examined.
Its contents ran thus.
Dr.
Jekyll presents his compliments to Mrs.
Moore.
He assures them their last sample is impure and quite useless for his present purpose.
In the year dated,
Dr.
Jekyll purchased a somewhat large quantity.
He now begs them to search for the most dullest care,
Should any of the same quality be left.
It must be forwarded to him at once,
Expenses,
No consideration.
The importance of this can hardly be exaggerated.
So far,
The letter had run composedly enough,
But here with a sudden sputter of the pen,
The writer's emotion had broken loose.
For God's sake,
He had added,
Find me some of the old.
This is a strange note,
Said Mr.
Utterson,
And then sharply,
How do you come to have it open?
The man at Moore's was main angry,
Sir,
And he threw it back to me like so much dirt,
Returned Paul.
This is unquestionably the doctor's hand,
You know,
Resumed the lawyer.
I thought it looked like it,
Said the servant rather sulkily.
But what matters,
Hand of right,
I've seen him.
Seen him,
Repeated Mr.
Utterson.
That's it,
Said Paul,
It was this way.
I came suddenly into the theatre from the garden.
It seemed he'd slipped out to look for this drug,
Whatever it was,
For the cabinet door was open,
And there he was at the far end of the room,
Digging among the crates.
He looked up when I came in,
Gave a kind of cry,
And whipped upstairs into the cabinet.
It was but for one minute I saw him,
But the hair stood upon my head like quills,
Sir.
If that was my master,
Why had he a mask upon his face?
If it was my master,
Why did he cry out like a rat and run from me?
I've served him long enough,
And then— The man paused and passed his hand over his face.
These are all very strange circumstances,
Said Mr.
Utterson.
But I think I begin to see daylight.
Your master,
Paul,
Is plainly seized with one of those maladies that both torture and deform the sufferer.
For what I know of the alteration of his voice,
Hence the mask and his avoidance of his friends,
Hence his eagerness to find this drug by means of which the poor soul retains some hope of ultimate recovery,
God grant that he be not deceived.
There is my explanation.
It is sad enough,
Paul,
Aye,
And appalling to consider,
But it is plain and natural.
It hangs well together,
And it delivers us from all exorbitant alarms.
